MARCH 227 



decided depression of the nervous system from the drop- 

 ping of all stimulants, a slight return to ordinary diet for a 

 time may be beneficial. Anything is better than producing 

 a tiervous irritation against the diet. Patients at any 

 rate are then able to realise for themselves whether it 

 does them good or not, and are able to remember how 

 they benefited at first from the cure and go back to it when 

 they feel inclined. They must also remember that much 

 that they suffer from is hereditary, and has to be con- 

 tinually fought rather than cured. To attribute every 

 ailment to the new diet, when people have lived on meat 

 and stimulants all their lives, and had constant attacks of 

 illness, is, to say the least of it, unreasonable. In the case 

 of vegetarians Dr. Haig has told me that they often come 

 to him insufficiently nourished. It is specially easy for 

 vegetarians to over-eat and yet be under-fed. 



I am the last to deny that many, and especially old 

 people, have benefited from a purely meat diet (the 

 ' Salisbury Cure ') when very strictly carried out, though 

 I never tried it myself. All that I feel, and I feel it 

 strongly, is that health is more likely to be bettered by 

 only taking food that clearly improves the blood than by 

 depending for cure on alterative medicines and tonics 

 which only relieve for a time. 



True wisdom always brings us back to the old rule 

 that moderation in all things is the best guide for every- 

 body. The fact has long been known with regard to 

 alcohol ; but it has only lately been acknowledged that tea, 

 coffee, and beef or chicken tea, are also stimulants and 

 not food, and are injurious to the nervous system. Who 

 would not have laughed, a few years ago, at the statement 

 that tea-drinking in large quantities produces a form of 

 delirium tremens ? And yet the illness is now quite re- 

 cognised as existing among the under-fed who drink tea 

 in excess. The craving for stimulants of some kind is 



Q2 



